'Evil spirits': The truth about Chinese New Year

By James Durston, CNN

Updated 1120 GMT (1920 HKT) January 29, 2014

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1. Squash into a train – Chinese New Year (CNY) is an exercise in excess, starting with the train ride back home -- along with 225 million other people. The author's ride from Shenzhen to Jiujiang took 15 hours and included a (common) delay of several hours.

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2. Overindulge – During CNY, millions of families reunite to eat, drink and eat, drink some more. Meals can include more than a dozen courses and copious quantities of beer and baijiu.

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3. Forget "sober" – Eleven billion liters of baijiu were consumed in China in 2012. That's a third of all spirits consumed worldwide. The distilled spirit can be up to 50% alcohol by volume, making it a frequent precursor to arguments, frivolity and forgettable karaoke sessions.

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4. Sing poorly ... probably – Karaoke is a popular after-dinner activity. Unfortunately baijiu often diminishes a drinker's tunefulness. Thankfully, no one cares.

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5. Wake up to firecrackers – Firecrackers as loud as rifle shots explode throughout CNY to ward off evil spirits. Unfortunately the "evil spirits" don't include hangovers.

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6. Repeat steps 2 through 5 – Just when you think you've survived the CNY challenge, you're off to lunch to start the whole process over. Festivities repeat each day for a week.

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Story highlights

Meeting a partner's Chinese family for the first time is an alcohol-imbued affair

Baijiu, a distilled spirit, is consumed in huge quantities over the festive period

If you do a little research into CNY, you'll be told it's a two-week period during which everyone goes home to honor their ancestors, worship deities and partake in superstitions and dragon dances that hark back centuries.

During CNY, millions of families reunite to eat, drink and eat, drink some more.

Right. And Westerners celebrate Christmas by singing hymns, praising St Nicholas and distributing wealth and good cheer to the needy.

It may go on in some places, for a short while, but for the most part, in most families, it's about drinking and eating far too much and trying not to disembowel each other over a Pictionary board.

The real CNY -- at least my version of it -- is a similarly non-traditional tradition that revolves around food, arguments and of course baijiu, the sickly, sticky distilled spirit with more kick than a startled mule.

It is this 100-proof (57% ABV) pungent, nasal-cavity-searing liquid that will forever tinge my memories of that first CNY experience.

Baijiu or Bacchus?

It started with a 15-hour train ride from Shenzhen to Jiujiang -- because we wanted to "do it properly, like locals."

That's 225 million locals to be precise -- the number of people who traveled by train during 2013's CNY.

It involved quantities of baijiu that don't make any sense to our numerically challenged brains.

Eleven billion liters were consumed in China in 2012 -- that's one third of all spirits consumed worldwide -- and my new family seemed convinced they could help surpass that in 2013.

The drinking of baijiu at CNY is a ceremonial affair that goes like this: there will be one uncle at the table who quietly designates himself the "baijiu assassin" -- empty baijiu glasses and sober people are his prey.

His mission, he has decided, is to ensure no one can stand up from the table without stumbling and giggling.

His weapon of choice is the toast, which works like this: he will stand, proffer his glass of baijiu toward another member, say something auspicious about health and fortune for the coming year, and then drink.

The irony of that act has not yet been grasped, it seems.

In order to acknowledge and accept the toast, the toastee must also stand and drink. Importantly, the toastee must drink the same quantity as the toaster.

And if you're a "yingguoren" (Englishman) or other "laowai" (foreigner) introduced to the group for the first time, you'll often be the subject of these toasts.

I was thankful to have survived the previous night, until I was told in an airily dismissive way to get washed and dressed for we were to have lunch soon, and the celebrations would begin all over again.

The only way I could have felt worse is if a thousand firecrackers were going off just outside the window.

Hangovers and firecrackers. Not a nice mix.

Which they were.

Those firecrackers, unleashed upon so many hungover skulls each CNY to symbolically drive away evil spirits, were like audible nails being hammered into my ear canals.

If there is a pairing more unfortunate than the year's most alcoholic night followed by the loudest morning after, I've not heard of it.

The second day went much like the first, and the third day went much like the second.